


where you want to be, where you are

by aiviloti



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, M/M, Post C387 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24594022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiviloti/pseuds/aiviloti
Summary: Kageyama Tobio lives his life by one rule.“Think about where you want to be. Then go there.”
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Tobio & Kageyama Kazuyo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	where you want to be, where you are

**Author's Note:**

> Kageyama Kazuyo was from Shiratorizawa. I have too many thoughts about this. Enjoy.

Kageyama Tobio lives his life by one rule.

“Think about where you want to be. Then go there.”

Kageyama is three. He is first taken to a volleyball gym. His thoughts in no way veers towards “I want to be here”, because such is the clarity of thoughts of a three year old toddler, whose sentences are still more gibberish than words. But he knows there is something about this place. 

Kageyama is five. An age where new vocabulary slips into the gaps of your sentences everyday and the gibberish vanishes. He knows clearly enough that he likes it here, at the volleyball gym. “I like it here, the colour and the smell,” he tells Kazuyo, because that is all there is to it. 

“If you like it here, then let’s come more often,” Kazuyo laughs. So Kageyama does.

The years pile up on top of each other. Kageyama Tobio keeps on playing volleyball, because this is where he wants to be, this is where he belongs. On a volleyball court.

He wonders why it doesn’t feel so.

Little Falcons is his first official team. He is going to start having fun, because this is what everything in his life had led him up to. Volleyball tournaments. Volleyball courts. Teammates on the volleyball field. 

_ Think about where you want to be. Then go there. _

Sounded easy enough. Kageyama wants a team. He gets a team. It doesn’t feel like one.

“Tobio, there at the end of the game, did you go easy with your serves on purpose?”

He shouldn’t have done it. He  _ knows  _ he shouldn't have done it. But he is already right where he wants to be. He doesn’t want to leave. Not now. He squeezes his eyes shut, not wanting to hear the reprimanding tone in Kazuya’s voice. 

“You know, if you get reeeally good, you’ll get to play a lot more games!” Kazuyo says cheerfully, certainly not what Kageyama is expecting. “The best players get to play many more games.”

When people are eight, or nine, or ten, or how however old they are during the unbearably long years elementary school seems to stretch out for, they are concerned about many things. Like video games. Like the concept of having friends. Not volleyball. Not matches that never lasted long enough, not the loneliness that shortens the intervals of its attacks.

Kageyama doesn’t reply. Kazuyo notices. “If you get really good,” he begins gently, “Someone even better will come find you.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

So, it’s alright, Kageyama thinks. Kageyama thought about where he wanted to be. And he goes on to junior high.

Junior high is a gorgeous place. Junior high has incredible volleyball courts, incredible volleyball teams, incredible volleyball teammates.

Junior high doesn’t feel like where he wants to be, though.

“The third years are amazing. But I don’t think they have any time for anyone else.”

“What about the others? People your age?”

“They suck,” Kageyama simply says, a crestfallen look in his eyes as he sits in the chair next to Kazuyo’s hospital bed. There had been so much he wanted to say to his grandfather before he came, but as he looked into the smile that he had grown up with grow weaker, the sentences fell apart.

“It’s alright, Tobio,” Kazuyo says to him, in what seemed to be his best attempt at comforting him. “You’ll get where you want to be.” 

There are two wolves within Kageyama. One really does not like hospitals. They smell of chemicals and antiseptics, bed sheets too eerie and clean to make him feel comfortable. One, on the other hand, really misses his grandfather. He comes in each time to see him getting frailer, and each time, he fears it will be the last. One wolf wins.

_ What about where you want to be then? _ Kageyama doesn’t ask Kazuyo, whose monthly hospital trips became weekly ones, and are now more than merely trips. He stares at Kazuyo, and he feels the conviction radiating from his eyes and the firm grip on his hand.

_ Think about where you want to be, then go there. _

When Kageyama leaves the entrance of Shiratorizawa High, the path home feels like it’s made out of quicksand. It takes so,  _ so _ much effort to plow step by step home to Miwa, a home without Kazuyo, but he eventually manages. After all, Kageyama isn’t a quitter. He doesn’t give up when things do not go the way he wants. He tries again.

Sometimes, things don’t work just because you don’t give up. Sometimes, you think about where you want to be, then you try to get there, then you fail.

There is nothing to break Kageyama’s fall. There are only eerie silences apart from the TV as he watches volleyball tournaments alone. There is only the soft thud of leather against skin as he practices alone. There is only the silent stares that his ex teammates give him when they pass each other on the streets, utterly deafening and unbearable.

Sometimes, when he lays awake at night, Kageyama wonders if Kazuyo is disappointed that he didn’t get into Shiratorizawa, even though he knows what the answer is. There is no shame in not getting into the most prestigious school in the prefecture. There is no shame in not being able to follow in the footsteps of someone you have spent your life chasing after.

Perhaps that’s not why it stings.

_ Think about where you want to be. _ His brain chimes. 

“Stop that,” Kageyama says. 

_ Then get there. _

“Stop.”

_ Why are you not there? _

“Shut up. Please shut up.” 

_ Where will you reach if you come short here?  _

“...”

Solitude is not the end of the world. The person he loved the most in the world dying is not the end of the world. Shiratorizawa closing its gates on Kageyama is not the end of the world. Nothing is ever really the end of the world until it is the end of the world.

He’ll fight this sinking feeling of failure. He always does. It just never really gets any easier, that’s all.

“Why are you here?” he asks in disbelief when he first sees Hinata Shouyou, of all people, at the doorstep of Karasuno High’s gym.

_ Think about where you want to be. _

On the court. Kageyama has always known the answer.

_ Then get there. _

* * *

“If you get really good, someone even better will come find you.”

Kazuyo’s words ring in Kageyama’s head as he looks at Hinata Shouyou from across the net.

_ Think about where you want to be _ .

Kageyama thinks of the Hinata Shouyou who told him “I am going to defeat you one day!” with the kind of confidence that looks ridiculous on a person who can’t even send a serve over the net. He thinks of the Hinata Shouyou who hits all of Kageyama’s tosses like they are the most valuable thing he knows. He thinks of the Hinata Shouyou who bickers with him all of the time, who has triumphed 783 times over him and has lost to him 784 times.

He thinks of the Hinata Shouyou who kissed him before he boarded a plane for Brazil. The one who silenced him with a finger, saying, “We can talk about this when we both get where we want to be, yeah?”

He thinks about the concept of being alone. He thinks of the teammates who left him behind, the ones who he left behind. He thinks of the people who stayed, and those who didn’t,  _ couldn’t _ . He thinks of Shiratorizawa High that his grandfather got in and he didn’t. He thinks of Hinata Shouyou, who was there in Karasuno for all of the three years, who was not there in the olympics, and is now here once more.

_ Then get there. _

“I’m here!”

**Author's Note:**

> it' 4:03 as i begin to type this note down. there was written within a feverish 3 hours after i read C396 and had too many feelings, so oh well. 
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](https://Twitter.com/aiviloti) or [tumblr](https://aiviloti.tumblr.com) Kudoes and comment go a long way, but at the end of the day I hope you got?? Something?? Out of this??? Things are messy and kind of depressing and hard in he universe right now. I hope you are doing fine. Yeah. You. Please take care, please prosper.


End file.
